


Retracing His Steps

by haledamage



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Aloth/Watcher Pre-Relationship, Gen, some light pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haledamage/pseuds/haledamage
Summary: Aloth has misplaced his grimoire. He runs into a few friends on his search for it.





	Retracing His Steps

**Author's Note:**

> for pillars prompt 0003, in which Aloth loses his grimoire. just an excuse to write something fun and fluffy really

They were leaving in the morning for Defiance Bay, something about a title dispute for the ownership of Caed Nua, and Aloth was taking a last opportunity to double-check his bags. Changes of clothes, bedroll, armor repair kit, rations, scepter…

He checked the pile of books by the bed, then under the bed, in his empty bag, then checked them all again just to be sure. His grimoire was nowhere to be found.

Aloth checked the room once more before giving up. He took a slow, deep breath to calm the building panic and frustration. Caed Nua was a big place. He clearly left it somewhere. He just needed to remember where.

He left his room at a controlled pace, headed toward the stairs. He paused briefly at Kai's door, hand raised to knock, but ultimately decided not to bother her. She had her own worries, it wasn't her job to keep track of his belongings. He hesitated a moment longer, then went downstairs to Brighthollow's common room.

The sweet smell of pipe smoke curled around him and Aloth wasn't surprised to find Edér sitting by the half-repaired fountain when he walked into the room.

"Whatcha lose?" Edér asked around his pipe before Aloth could say anything.

Aloth took a moment to better clear his expression before he answered; if Edér could read his panic that easily, he wasn't doing a good enough job. "I've misplaced my grimoire," he said calmly, "I'm fairly certain I've left it in the library and was on my way there. I don't suppose you've seen it?"

"Nah," said Edér. "Library sounds like a smart bet, though. You ask Kiki? She might know."

"Kai has enough concerns without adding my own problems to it."

"Uh huh," Edér said with a knowing smirk. "Seems to me you both got a few problems you could solve for each other, but I suppose that ain't my business."

Aloth felt his face redden and looked away from Edér and his growing grin. "Yes, well, thank you for your assistance." He turned to leave without another word, Edér's good-natured laughter following him out the door.

"Good afternoon, my lord," Steward's sonorous voice greeted as soon as he entered the keep, speaking both in his ears and in his mind.

"Good day, Steward," he replied politely. "How do you do?"

"Very well, thank you." Her voice was excited, as it always was when she spoke of Caed Nua. There was no doubting that Steward was proud of her keep and the renovations it was undergoing. "Work on the towers is nearly completed, and another supply caravan arrived safely this morning and is being unloaded. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Oh," Aloth hadn't considered asking her, but now that she mentioned it, it seemed as good an idea as any. "Kai tells me you can sense the entirety of Caed Nua's grounds. Does that include objects as well or just kith?"

"Only living things and the buildings belonging to the keep." Steward said. "I can feel the birds nesting in my lady's plumeria tree, for example, but I cannot tell the difference between a table and the book or lantern sitting on it."

"As I suspected," Aloth said and resumed his walk toward the library, "Thank you for your time, Steward."

"Have you asked Lady Kai? Her connection to Caed Nua is different from mine."

He paused for a moment before continuing on. Why did everyone keep asking him that? "I'll keep that in mind. Thank you again."

Aloth found Kana in the library surrounded by a stack of books almost as large as he was. He had another book open in his lap, pen moving in a flurry across the page as he mumbled to himself.

"New research project?" Aloth asked.

Kana looked up and grinned. "Hello, my friend. No, no, just a bit of light reading while I have the day off." He looked at the piles of books around him and laughed. "Well, that's how it started. I'm afraid I went off on a bit of a tangent."

Aloth couldn't fight a smile. Kana's enthusiasm was always infectious. "What are you reading, then?"

"Oh! I was just comparing some of my old translations of Engwithan runes with a more recent one Kai provided me." Kana held up his notebook for Aloth to see, but his handwriting was an illegible scrawl. "I did better than I would have expected, but obviously it's hard to compare with a native speaker."

"Hmm," was all Aloth could think to say in response. Languages had never been his forte. "I don't suppose you've seen my grimoire while you were rearranging the library."

Kana thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. "Red binding, gilded pages, right? I haven't seen anything like that. Have you considered asking—” 

"Asking Kai, no I haven't spoken to her yet today. You're the third person to suggest I do. Is there something I'm missing?"

"She knows Caed Nua better than anyone," Kana said, then smiled slyly. "Besides, 'help me find my grimoire' seems a good excuse to spend time together."

"I wasn't aware I needed an _excuse_ to spend time with a friend," Aloth muttered, mostly to himself. He didn't like the look of Kana's smirk; it was too knowing, and much too similar to the look Edér had given him earlier. He felt rather like everyone was telling a joke he didn't get. More likely, the joke was on him, teasing him for his infatuation with Kai, as if he wasn't already aware how unobtainable the Watcher was. "Thank you, Kana. I'll let you get back to work.”

He checked through the library anyway, just to be certain. Still no grimoire. He waved farewell to Kana and stepped back outside.

It was mid-afternoon and Aloth had run out of places to look. He wandered the grounds for a while trying to think where else he might have left his grimoire, but came up empty.

He found himself headed toward Kai's plumeria tree and its newly-hatched family of finches. The Dyrwood wasn't the ideal climate for such a warm weather tree, but Kai and the Warden of the Wilds she'd hired as groundskeeper had worked tirelessly for days to acclimate it and now it bloomed proudly, the centerpiece of the rapidly expanding botanical gardens. Aloth could understand the symbolism there, an Aedyran flower thriving in Dyrwoodan soil, and knew how much it meant to her to see it doing so well.

At the base of the tree was a book. It couldn't be his, of course, he rarely came out this way, but he approached nonetheless. It was a leather-bound tome with a green spine and gilded pages. Runes across the cover spelled out _Akaia_. Kai's grimoire. What was it doing out here?

"Aloth!" He turned at the sound of his name to see Kai jogging over to him. "There you are," she said as she stopped in front of him, "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Aren't you psychically linked to the land here? You could have found me easily." Aloth was genuinely curious, but it mostly came out teasing.

"I don't like to use it." Kai shrugged. "It seems like an invasion of privacy. Regardless, I have something for you."

She held a red spined book out to him and it took a few shocked seconds to recognize his grimoire. "Thanks for letting me borrow it, dear," Kai was saying, "I think I've finally got the hang of the Ironskin spell, though I'm not sure if I can recite it fast enough to be much use in battle yet." She smiled. "Maybe I should just stick to hurling fireballs at my enemies."

Aloth schooled his expression to hide his relief and reached for the book. His fingers brushed hers, and her cheeks turned a delightful shade of pink as she pulled away. He smiled and said, "I could help you practice, if you'd like. We still have some daylight left and I don't have any other plans for the evening."

"I'd like that." Kai studied him in that _way_ she had. Like she was seeing through him, down to his soul—except he'd seen how she looked when she _actually_ looked into people's souls, and she mostly looked unconscious. She grinned at him. "You forgot I had it, didn't you."

He blushed, but resisted the urge to drop his eyes. "Of course I didn't."

"Of course you didn't," she said fondly, and took her grimoire from him where he still held it clutched to his side. "How ridiculous of me to think so."

"Please don't tell Edér, I'll never hear the end of it."

She winked at him as she led the way toward the training grounds. "Of course not, darling. Your secret's safe with me."


End file.
